


a truth universally acknowledged

by FullmetalChords



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Regency, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 09:06:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13498880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FullmetalChords/pseuds/FullmetalChords
Summary: “Katsuki, please.” Reluctantly, Yuuri turns to see Nikiforov holding the bedcurtains open. “I should think Chris would not want you so inconvenienced.”“It is no inconvenience.” The lie is heavy on Yuuri’s tongue, and he swallows. “I could not impose upon you so.”“This is your bed. If anything, I am imposing on you.”--A mid-banquet blizzard strands Yuuri and Lord Nikiforov at Lord Giacometti's mansion, requiring them to share a bedchamber until the end of the storm.





	a truth universally acknowledged

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seventhstar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhstar/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY NURI ♥ ♥ ♥
> 
> Men in the Regency era often shared beds, especially when traveling. It wasn't seen as taboo or strange to sleep in the same bed with a person you weren't married to until the Victorian era. 
> 
> So, like. What the hell else am I supposed to do with that. 
> 
> I'm sorry about the un-originality of the title (and possibly the premise), but absolutely nothing else.

“I assure you, my good man, I do not bite.”

Yuuri refuses to move from where he is curled up in front of the hearth, his traveling cloak providing a barrier between his body and the floor. He is afraid to turn to face his bedmate behind him for fear their eyes might catch.

The situation they are in cannot be helped. It is the third day that snow has been falling thickly, obscuring the grounds outside and keeping them all harbored indoors. The blizzard had come rather abruptly in the middle of Christophe Giacometti, Earl of Dunshire’s birthday banquet, and Yuuri had been obligated to share his lodgings with one of the other guests as they all waited out the storm.

Naturally, he relinquished the bed for Nikiforov’s sole use. Yuuri may be on more of a long-term stay, in from the city to spend several weeks with his friend the Earl; but he is but a simple merchant’s son, nowhere near Nikiforov’s social rank. The first two nights, he has laid on the hard floor while Nikiforov slept inside velvet hangings, as befits their statuses. 

And yet for a member of the nobility, Nikiforov has been surprisingly kind to him.These days cooped up indoors with him, playing chess or sharing book recommendations, speaking wistfully of childhood winters playing in the snow… They may have been moments born of solitude or idleness for Nikiforov, but Yuuri treasures them regardless.

And this is what makes it all the more imperative that he remain on the floor, unable to risk any social taboos by drifting too close to Nikiforov in his sleep, an unconscious surrender to the growing need to be close to the man.

The fire gutters before him, and Yuuri shivers involuntarily, relegating himself to another uncomfortable night. There is a soft noise behind him.

“Katsuki, please.” Reluctantly, Yuuri turns to see Nikiforov holding the bedcurtains open. “I should think Chris would not want you so inconvenienced.”

“It is no inconvenience.” The lie is heavy on Yuuri’s tongue, and he swallows. “I could not impose upon you so.”

“This is _your_ bed. If anything, I am imposing on you.”

Yuuri hesitates, but can find no fault with his logic. With some trepidation, Yuuri gets to his feet, smoothing down his nightshirt as he pads across the floor, sliding in the covers beside Nikiforov. The other man shifts to make room for him, giving Yuuri the warm spot his body had occupied just moments ago, and Yuuri cannot help but sigh as the warmth envelops his skin, replacing the chill of the flagstone.

“You are very generous, Nikiforov,” he says, giving a little nod of his head when he remembers himself. “Thank you.”

Nikiforov chuckles behind him as Yuuri turns away to draw the curtains. “If we are to be bedmates,” he says, “you _must_ call me Victor.”

“Victor,” Yuuri repeats. The man’s given name tastes sweet on his tongue. “I’m Yuuri.”

“I know.” Somehow in the darkness and warmth of this bed, Victor’s voice feels more intimate. “I confess myself gladdened to see you’ve finally come to your senses, Yuuri. Am I so unpleasant a prospect?”

“No!” Yuuri swallows again, afraid he’s spoken too quickly. “I-I am… simply unaccustomed to sleeping beside another.”

The nerves he feels are foolish. There is nothing scandalous about him simply sharing a bed with Victor; why, then, is his heart pounding so loudly in his chest?

“Oh?” There is a rustling in the darkness beside him as Victor settles onto their pillow. “What ever will you do when you wed, Yuuri? Will you sleep by the hearth every night while your bride languishes away in your marital bed?”

The candor in his words makes Yuuri’s face grow hot. He knows Victor means nothing by it, and yet his words make Yuuri think of _Victor_ languishing away in here night after night while Yuuri shivers on the cold floor.

These are dangerous thoughts for someone of his station to hold.

“I… have given little thought to marriage,” he finally answers, truthfully. Other than a vague thought that he must marry someday, at present time he finds the notion of a wife wholly uninteresting.

“None at all?” Victor sounds amazed. “Have you no prospects?”

Yuuri shakes his head, then says “No” aloud, realizing Victor may be unable to see him. His own eyes are adjusting to the darkness, a vague shape materializing before him in the form of Nikiforov’s strong jaw, the swoop of his pale hair. “Someday, perhaps, when I have more to offer.” He thinks of his business, viable but modest. He could offer someone a reprieve from poverty, perhaps; but he is certainly nowhere near the echelon of Victor and Lord Dunshire.

“Impossible.” Victor shakes his head. “A man of your charms… you must have half of London swooning at your feet.”

Yuuri grimaces. “Hardly.” None in their right mind would court a man of his stature. “And regardless… I must confess myself wholly unskilled in the ways of romance. Surely you must have noticed at the-“

“Perhaps you need practice.”

Victor’s words are so surprising that it takes Yuuri far too long to rediscover his composure.

“I cannot say I understand your meaning,” he finally sputters.

“It is simple,” Victor says, and rolls until he is leaning over Yuuri. From this distance Yuuri can see the pale flutter of his eyelashes. "If you find the thought of marital relations a terrifying unknown, then you must instead make them a _known_."

Yuuri cannot imagine the mental path that has brought Victor to this conclusion, and yet… Yuuri feels the warmth of the man before him, remembers how he looks when he smiles, and god help him, Yuuri _wants_.

"Victor," Yuuri says, helpless. He is unsure when Victor decreased the distance between them once more, but he finds that Victor is now close enough that their noses are a thumb’s width from touching.

"If you do not want this," Victor murmurs. The tip of his nose has absorbed some of the room's chill, and the shock of it prods Yuuri back towards a reality he suddenly finds he has little interest in.

"I do," he says, and leans in to press their lips together.

Victor’s lips are soft, and he tastes sweet on Yuuri’s tongue, and Yuuri finds himself chasing Victor’s mouth with his own, unwilling to part with him for more than the space of a breath. Victor’s hands cradle his face like he might a lover’s, and the intimacy makes Yuuri’s head whirl as though he and Victor are dancing a feverish waltz.

“Please,” he murmurs when Victor pulls away; he clings to the silken back of his bedmate’s nightshirt. “Teach me, Victor.”

“Y-yes.” In the darkness he cannot see if Victor is as flushed as he feels; can only hear his breaths as though he has just run a great distance. “My dear one,” he hears Victor say, before kissing Yuuri’s jaw, his neck. Yuuri wonders who he is imagining Yuuri to be in the darkness; if there is a lover somewhere he pines for. It amazes him to find that it matters not to him.

For the moment, Victor is his.

They kiss, and kiss, and the ember inside Yuuri’s chest is fanned into a flame. Their bodies rock together, separated only by their thin nightshirts, and Yuuri cannot recall having moved but they must have. Victor is now gasping beneath him, clinging to Yuuri’s nightshirt.

“Yes,” Victor is chanting, a refrain that only stops when he leans back in to kiss Yuuri once more. “I beg you, anything, Yuuri…”

“I-I…” Yuuri’s face is burning. “You said you would teach me how to please a wife.”

Victor shudders, clearly repulsed by Yuuri’s clumsy words; but his touch is sweet as he strokes Yuuri’s hair.

“You must have pleasured yourself before,” he says, and moves Yuuri’s hand to the obscene bulge between his legs. “Will you demonstrate on me?”

Yuuri bites his lip, and does. The anatomy is incongruous with what a wife would possess; but Victor’s reaction is immediate, and gratifying, and that matters far more. His legs part at Yuuri’s touch, a damp spot appearing on the front of his nightshirt, and soon the offending garment is rucked up high around Victor’s waist so that Yuuri might see — _oh_ —

“Victor,” he sighs, leaning in to swallow his bedmate’s whimpers of pleasure. He is aching between his legs, which only grows more acute when Victor’s fingertips creep under his hem. He lowers himself onto Victor, feeling the sharp jut of his hips, the way his hardness pulses against Yuuri’s own.

“Yuuri— oh—“ Victor’s hips are rocking into Yuuri’s, creating friction that makes Yuuri’s knees buckle. “Your wife shall be— a lucky woman indeed—“

It is that notion of _wives_ that he throws off almost instantly; it is easy to forget, in the dark and the heat, that someday Yuuri will be married, that someday a gentlewoman will occupy this space in Victor’s bed. Were anyone to see them in this position, their legs bare, it would cause unimaginable scandal for Victor.

Yuuri spits in his hand, spreading the slick over where their cocks are joined, fist blurring; and finally voices what he has feared to speak aloud.

“Be my wife, Victor,” he whispers into his bedmate’s ear, and Victor all but convulses. Something warm and sticky splatters onto Yuuri’s stomach as Victor whimpers, and Yuuri is so caught up in the sensations, in the noises Victor is making, in the warmth of his skin, that he almost doesn’t realize what’s happened. Victor’s seed on his skin, incontrovertible evidence of their indiscretion, ought to be shameful, ought to make him feel unclean… And yet this proof that he has the same hold over Victor that Victor has on him is so— it’s—

Yuuri gasps, and shivers, and buries his face in Victor’s neck as he, too, spills out over his fist, staining their bedclothes. Victor is holding him close, murmuring something soothing, but the words are insubstantial compared to the way Victor holds him in his arms, refusing to pull away from the intimacy they’ve just shared.

He has just defiled a lord in his own bed. What on earth will his host think? What on earth will _Victor_ think, when his mad lust for a commoner’s flesh has subsided?

“I-I should…” he begins, raspy, but the way Victor clings quickly silences him.

“You must not abandon your wife after a coupling,” Victor murmurs into his ear. “You would be leaving her bereft.”

Victor’s hands are gentle on Yuuri’s back; his lips soft on Yuuri’s cheeks and forehead, as though absentmindedly tracing Yuuri’s shape with his mouth. Yuuri does not pull away, although he does shift so he is lying beside Victor and not atop him.

“Very well,” he says, his voice small. Victor tilts his chin up for another kiss; this one is soft, grateful. A lover’s kiss.

He wishes, not for the first time since meeting Victor, that he might be kissed in this manner by this lord forever.

—

When the snow finally melts, and Lord Nikiforov returns to his estate in the country, he is not alone.

Years pass. The nobles murmur, of course, about how queer it is that there is no Lady Nikiforov, that the Duke of Midsomer has turned down every match presented him and seems utterly unconcerned with his lack of heirs.

“It’ll go to the ward,” they murmur behind their hands at balls. “That Plisetsky boy. How uncouth.”

If Lord Nikiforov is aware of the murmurs about him, he never lets on. Simply smiles, and bows, and introduces his detractors to his longtime companion, the bespectacled merchant at his side.

And if anyone spies lord and merchant waltzing together on the balcony at the end of an evening, Lord Nikiforov’s head on his companion’s shoulder… they at least have the sense to leave them in peace.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading the latest installment in my "Meg writes in uncharacteristic genres bc of her friends" series


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